How to Effectively Capture Data in the Harshest Environments

You need it quick, easy and clean

Capturing data in treacherous and challenging environments can be a complicated and complex venture. The integrity and accuracy of the data is of the utmost importance. You’ll need to find hardware and software up to the task.

When you are out in the field, you’re going to need rugged hardware and advanced software. When gathering data in remote areas, you need to feel confident that your tools are going to get the job done.

Gathering data in the field provides insights

Data in the field is a necessity. With the right type of hardware and software, you can rapidly enter clean data in an efficient manner. This data can then inform real-time operations or be aggregated with other information to provide larger insights for a project.

When using specialised field equipment, you have the ability to immediately see errors. It can alert you to errors in the data capture so it can be remedied on the spot. Gathering and validation of the data in the field allows for less overall errors and improves turnaround times.

Multi-log and Custom Validation

If you have multiple users collecting data in the field, you’ll need to be able to multi-log. You’ll want to have more than one logger definition per machine, depending on your work role for drilling, producing, environmental monitoring or rehabilitation tasks.

You can take validation one step further with custom checks for your specific business rules. This means that the parameters are customised to fit your needs. With custom templates and validation, you have:

Flexible data collection templates for all field work types

Compatibility with all data management software and data models

Industry standard code and numeric range checks

Downhole interval and depth integrity checks

Check for logic and context across the data

Time based data types and workflows

Embedded custom help and field procedural documents, photos and charts

Once you start to transfer data, you’ll need to have a flagging system to ensure data sets are clean and not exported more than once. Using tools that can alert you to this will keep the data accurate and the data flow streamlined.

Easy function

When working in the field, you don’t have time to worry about the structure or layout of the data. Use a system that has user friendly data entry defaults to help automate data collection. Template changes and data transfer tasks can be performed easily in a single step.

Sharing data

You often need to take data from the office to the field. The field system you use should allow for importing data as well as input from external devices such as GPS, Cameras, Digital Scales and Bar Code Scanners. Double handling of digital data and a reliance on multiple spreadsheets is unnecessary.

Keep data clean and safe

Data integrity is very important in the field. To ensure that data stays clean and safe, there should be an auditable “digital” trail. This allows for you to look back should you feel the data has been compromised.

Data in the field is crucial to every part of what you do. You’ll want hardware that can work in extreme conditions as well as software that makes data aggregation and collection easy. In more than 13 years of use in the some of the world’s toughest conditions there has never been an incident of lost data due to software failure.

Learn more about how to obtain fast, accurate and reliable data in the field with OCRIS Mobile. OCRIS Mobile is the best choice for capturing data in tough environments.